Fate and Metaphysical Aid
by Assimbya
Summary: Dracula offers another temptation to Vanessa. Slight AU of 3.07.


"They could never have loved you as you deserved," he said, Dracula, Alexander, whatever he called himself. Voice so soft and steady, despite the press of her pistol against his chest (she could feel the yielding of the fabric beneath the metal, and imagined the skin beneath, the ribcage against which she had spread her palms - no, do not think of that, not now). "Those you call your friends, you family - they fled from your darkness, your pain, everything that makes you most beautiful. Don't listen to them, Vanessa. Don't let their voices drown out the voice of your own need."

Vanessa could feel the rasp in her throat, the soreness of tears, of sleeplessness. "You've killed my friends. _You've _denied me their closeness, made it dangerous for them to be around me. Oh - my Mina" - her voice broke around the name, which she had barely let herself speak these many months, even inside the sanctity of Dr. Seward's office - "she died with your teeth in her throat, you took her away from me."

His chest rose and fell, the deep inhale and exhale of a man about to speak something painful. "So many took her from you before that time. Your church, your family, that fool of a fiancé who I know you hated, all of them told you the same thing; that you could not have her, not as you wanted, not as you desired. They told you she could not love you."

"That has nothing to do with this," she spat out the words at him, "don't make excuses for your murders."

"You think I murdered her?" He sounded hurt, and she could even have believed it, heard the sensitive zoologist in his voice, saw him in the creases around his eyes. "You saw her as she was, at my side. What I offer isn't death, not to her and certainly not to you. I am not my brother."

"A living death, then, undeath, whatever name you use, you took her life from her." She wanted to pull the trigger, wanted to be done with this, but then she would be alone again, looking out over the creatures frozen in their cases, her own breath the only sound.

"It was your Sir Malcolm who put the bullet in her skull. I was only meant to play the role of widower."

At once, she thought of Alexander, speaking delicately of his bereavement, and Mina's pale corpse upon the stage, so quickly rushed into her coffin. She could feel her grip upon the pistol weakening. Oh, she was so tired.

"You took her to lure me," she said, "don't pretend grief."

He shook his head. "I don't. The millennia have taught me loss, but Mina was for you. A gift, Vanessa. I freed her from the strictures that kept you two apart, and then I gave her immortality so that I might offer her love to you alongside my own. There is so much I want to give you, my dear one."

He made a slight gesture with his hand, and a figure stepped from the shadows behind him, a white gown to her ankles, yellow hair loose over her shoulders.

"No!" The word burst from her like a sob. "I don't want illusions, don't lie to me again."

"When have I lied?" He stood still, but she wanted him to touch her, wanted to feel his palm against his shoulder, the living solidity that Lucifer never had, which in him was such an endless relief. "She's here; she's yours, just as I am. Say yes; only that I ask, only that pure act of submission to accept that everything you've wanted can be yours."

"I buried her," Vanessa said, not looking at the phantom who could not be Mina, "I kissed her bloody forehead. You're tricking me."

Alexander smiled, with infinite gentleness. "Those who are mine cannot be killed by a simple bullet fired by a vainglorious old man. I opened that coffin for her and helped her out of it."

"No," she let her hand holding the pistol fall, "this cannot be."

"Touch her for yourself," he said, "embrace her." He turned away from Vanessa momentarily, took the woman's hand, guided her forward, "She is for you."

Vanessa could not help looking at her then, her eyes tracing over the familiar features: narrow nose, round cheeks, the soft waves of her hair. The mouth, which might once have been Mina's, smiled. "My sister."

She lifted her left hand towards the woman, reached for hair, cheek, and felt them, warm and alive as Alexander's flesh had been. "Oh." The tears almost blurred her vision, but she could not stop looking. "I have missed you so much."

"I have been right here," Mina's voice was small and tight, "darling Vanessa, I've been waiting for you."

A desperate hunger rose in Vanessa then, for both of them, for arms around her, a hand on her hair, a closeness without ending. She could not turn away and go back to that empty house, not when need clung at her sternum, holding her tight as a chain.

(A small gray spider moved in Mina's hair.)

"I love you," she said, and did not know to whom she spoke, "I love you."

"And you are loved," Alexander said, "So deeply are you loved. Invite us in, Vanessa, Amunet, Lady of the Darkness."

"Yes," Vanessa breathed an exhale, "yes."

She saw Mina throw her head back, yellow hair glittering in the low light, heard a laugh which might have been sinister or joyous or both, and then there were Dracula-Alexander's arms around her, his mouth on her throat, and the sharp deep ecstatic pain of it, feeling her own back arch, the immense relief of giving herself over, of letting the coiled up tension held tight as long as she can remember being conscious loosen.

And the knowledge of Mina's eyes upon her.

Her eyes closed, limbs weakened, and his grip shifted, bearing her up, and then the teeth were gone from her throat. A moment, and then his wrist was against her mouth, her lips against an open wound. She swallowed one mouthful of blood, and then another. Yes. Copper in her mouth, salt-sweet. She licked at the wound, like an animal. Power surged inside her, more potent than the Verbis Diablo on her tongue. And then it was done. She clutched for him, caught at his forearms, found her way back upright. She looked into his face. His eyes were black, but it did not horrify her any longer. How beautiful it was, like some creature suited to a different world and a different type of light. She remembered the form in which she had encountered him when she sought to rescue Mina, and in her memory it seemed no more monstrous than a serpent's.

"Oh," he exhaled with her blood on his teeth, "Amunet. How long I have waited."

Mina was still watching, in stillness. Vanessa nodded towards her, still letting the dizziness leave her. "Will she, too, taste my blood?" She was pleased to see Mina's still expression shift, noticed her glance towards Dracula with what seemed like hope.

"No," he said. She heard the echo of iron command behind the answer, but it was not directed towards her. "You are my bride, and I reserve that honor for myself." He smiled. "But you are also her mistress, and everything she has is yours. I give her to you, beloved."

Vanessa stepped away from Dracula, and regarded Mina, in her unnatural stillness. _Mine,_ she thought, with a wild glee, _now and always, and no one shall take her away from me, no father or mother or husband._ She extended her hand towards Mina, and saw it tremble. "Come to me.

Mina came. Her palm in Vanessa's was warm, not cold and dead as she had feared. "My own Vanessa," she said, and Vanessa saw that she was crying, "I want this so much."

"Tell me what you want," Vanessa commanded.

"Everything. To be yours. Mistress, lady, sister. Whatever you want, always."

Vanessa touched Mina's hair, and it was as fine and soft as spider silk. "Kiss me," she said, and there were Mina's lips against her own, her tongue between them, their arms around each other, bodies pressed so close, and it was every fantasy she had ever had when she was thirteen, and she found the pearl buttons on Mina's dress and ripped them off, one after another, after another, until she could pull the whole dress from her body and there she was, shoulders bare, exposed only for Vanessa's pleasure.

Somewhere in her mind, she wondered how Mina had been changed, become this death-pallor-tinged creature before her who promised her everything, offered a submission that had never been a part of their childhood closeness. If she was a good person, then that question, the question of what Mina's wanting now could mean, would have made her stop and turn aside.

But Vanessa knew herself not to be a good person, she had shared her blood with a devil and taken on monstrosity like a cape. It had always been in her. She remembered sitting on Mina's bed and watching her dress for the last time, knowing she dressed for ihis/i gaze, that idiot man who wasn't worthy of her, and wanting to rip the corset and the petticoat and dresses off, wanting to push her down on the bed and show her that she could love her better than he could. Her love for Mina had never been a soft and yielding thing; she had never known love to be such. No, it was a love with claws, and she had fought so long to keep them from scratching her friend. But now, Mina had been made invulnerable, and offered up to her as a the tribute to a queen, and the force of her wanting had no limits.

She laid Mina down on the tile of the museum, and touched her in the ways she had dreamed of touching her, the longing hastening her, even though she had an eternity now, didn't she? They were immortal, they could make love through the apocalypse. She closed her eyes and listened to Mina's moans, felt her hands reach and grasp for Vanessa, pull her closer, so close she could hear her heartbeat, so close that they could dissolve into each other, and before Vanessa could think differently of it her mouth was at Mina's throat, and the blood was sweet and Mina was within her, like this they could be so close, not even skin would be a barrier between them.

She lifted her head and looked up at Dracula, at his gaze of adoration. She laughed, in a delight she could not have imagined, the two of them there, Mina spread beneath her and Dracula standing above, both hers, both loving her.

"I accept all of it," she told him, and knelt back, still feeling Mina's hips between her knees, letting her perception extend through the world around her, "I am the mother of evil, and I will take my throne."

There was a rattling around them, glass displays shaking, and then a shattering. The creatures, freed from death, began to find their way to liberty; birds and moths against the domed glass, the feet of wolves and jaguars padding across the floor. The scorpions and spiders came to her, crawling across Mina's body and up Vanessa's own.

She loved them. As she loved Mina and Dracula, both monsters also in their undeath. Her love was so deep, it could encompass them all, like the depths of the blue sea, the dark earth, the starless sky.


End file.
